The present invention concerns a device for managing dish stocks in a restaurant, in particular a fast-service restaurant.
These dishes may be composed of several products which are either or not similar, such as vegetables, or they may be composed of one piece, such as a piece of meat, or they may be compound, such as a hamburger sandwich or menu, a sausage roll, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, a spring roll or such. The dish is hereby preferably packed or at least placed on a plate or saucer or such.
In fast-service restaurants, generally called fast food restaurants, it is customary that dishes such as hamburger menus are lying ready, for example on a table, before the consumer orders them.
However, these dishes may not be left lying too long before use, since their quality quickly deteriorates with time Dishes which are left lying longer than a certain length of time, for example 10 minutes, are often removed and considered as waste.
In order to have a sufficiently large number of dishes of different types in store, so that the consumers do not have to wait, irrespective of the type of dish they have ordered on the one hand, and to lose as few left portions as possible on the other hand, a particularly complicated management is required, the more so since demand may strongly vary in time.
In large fast-service restaurants, this management is entrusted to an employee who, taking into account statistical data regarding the sales in previous periods, decides with what sort of dishes the stocks need to be replenished, and who visually checks what dishes have been lying there for too long and must be removed from the stocks.
This person gives instructions to the persons in the rooms where the food is being prepared to prepare a particular dish in order to anticipate the expected demand for this type of dish. By means of a clock and some sign which accompanies every dish when it is put in store, said person decides what dishes have been lying in store for too long and must be removed.
The stock management not only requires an extra person, but even when this person has a lot of experience and usually has a computer at his disposal containing the actual sales data, his instructions nevertheless remain largely based on speculation and consequently are often wrong, so that a relatively large number of dishes end up as waste, which implies losses.
The invention aims a device for managing dish stocks which avoids these disadvantages and which takes over the task of the above-mentioned person and takes care of the management in a better way.
This aim is reached according to the invention by means of a device containing a storage room with a number of positions for rows of dishes, whereby different rows may contain different types of dishes, but whereby each row is designed to contain dishes of one and the same type; means to move the dishes contained in every row to a distribution point where a dish can be taken out of the storage room; means to detect the dishes contained in the storage room; at least one instruction means near a preparation room; and a computer control where data, among others regarding sales figures, can be put in and/or stored and which is connected to the above-mentioned detection means and the above-mentioned instruction means, and which is able to give instructions via the instruction means as a function of the above-mentioned data and of the information of the detection means.
The troughs may be inclined downwards towards the distribution point, whereby the means for moving the dishes may contain a roller conveyor or means for forming an air cushion. In the latter case, the air cushion may be formed with hot air which is also used to keep the dishes in store warm.
Preferably, the storage room contains a number of troughs whereby every trough contains the positions for one row of dishes.
These troughs may form a whole and together form an inclined surface with walls and partitions.
According to a particular embodiment of the invention, the device also contains a removal mechanism which is controlled by the computer for removing a dish out of a row on the distribution point.
The device may also contain detection. means connected to the computer control for detecting one or several of the following numbers: the number of clients queuing at the cash desk or the ordering desk, the number of clients entering and leaving the restaurant or also the number of passers-by of the restaurant.